With the widespread adoption and availability of mobile technology such as mobile phones and hand-held tablets, an exponential increase in the number of mobile devices has been observed around the world. There is also a growing interest in using mobile devices to control electrical systems in homes, for study, work, and other applications.
Existing studies and proposals commonly employ client/server architecture for using mobile devices as system controls, e.g., in medical applications, robotics, PC games, and home appliances, while different protocols of communications are selected such as TCP/IP sockets, Bluetooth, Dual Tone Multi Frequency, and X10 transmission. However, these approaches require the control system to be specially designed for a particular application and may require additional hardware. It is also not easy to extend these approaches to other scenarios/applications.
Several existing products, such as LogMeIn, Jump Desktop, Splashtop, RocketCloud, and TeamViewer, adopt similar idea of remotely controlling computers via mobile devices. Each of these products requires the user to install a server program on a computer (e.g. Mac or Windows PC), and a client program on a mobile device (e.g. running iOS or Android operating system). In turn, these products allow the user to remotely control the computer, and access the files, pictures, applications and programs on the computer through the mobile device. Full mouse and keyboard control of a remote desktop is provided, including multi-touch control if the remote desktop is compatible.
One of the major limitations of existing products is the lack of flexibility in customization. Furthermore, existing products typically provide the user with full control of the remote desktop. While providing full-access of the remote desktop may be appropriate for personal use, in many business scenarios, such unrestricted access can be unsuitable and/or undesirable. Another major limitation of existing products is that only a single user is allowed.